


Pandora's Box

by Keylah



Category: Glee, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pepper/Tony if you squint, Pepper/Tony/Steve if you squint really hard and go crosseyed, Steve/Tony if you squint, Wingfic, gleevengers, the fic where Blaine is Tony's mutant son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-06 21:42:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keylah/pseuds/Keylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The official birth certificate says “Blaine Howard Anderson”, but, and here’s another secret, there’s another certificate. Tony keeps it locked up tight in the back of his desk, sealed in a secret compartment, a roll of paper that says “Blaine Howard Stark”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandora's Box

The world thinks that Tony Stark can’t keep a secret. His life is in the tabloids (they may as well be his biography as far as the public is concerned), who he sleeps with, how many times, where, when, (sometimes how) is always on display, a brilliant splash of color with a gleaming bold headline.

Iron Man is the worst kept secret; it was never a secret at all.

What they don’t understand is that none of those things? None of them are important. The things that are important (how Pepper smiles in the morning, the best way to calm Banner from turning into the Jolly Green Giant, the way his not-heart beat-flashes when Steve laughs) Tony keeps close and locked in the vault of his iron heart.

_There’s a place in Ohio. Small, little, and unimportant in the grand scheme of interplanetary politics and mutant revolutions._

There are four hearts, belonging to Tony Stark, steel and glowing blue that survive on the planet. One is framed in a glass case, old and imperfect, made of rickety parts and held together by luck and fire. The second is in his heart, always glowing a bright blue: I’m here. And fuck you if I’m leaving. The third is in a vault, in an office, with Pepper Potts, and a key in the belt of America’s Hero.

There’s a fourth heart that no one knows about. No one save Pepper, and Tony. Jarvis too, but jury’s still out on whether he counts. This heart is in the box and under the bed of a teenage boy verging on adulthood.

_That’s the deepest secret, that Tony hopes and prays, it never hurts and Tony will pray and pray and pray to an entity he doesn’t believe in just in case, that no one will ever find out. He keeps the memory locked in box, adamantium tight, and keeps out of Xavier’s way._

_Because the secret is black curls, and hazel eyes. It’s the bright laugh and welcoming smile of a little boy who calls him_ Dad _._

~*~*~

The first time he see Blaine, it’s in a photograph. Tony is at home, slouched on his long comfortable couch and staring at the ceiling, a glass of alcohol in his hand (he’s not sure what he’s drinking at this point, only that it burns going down, and tastes like nothing as it slides down his throat).

There’s static buzz breaking the silence of his apartment, and his phone skitters across the glass table and falls to the floor, insistently nudging his hand and bumping the clear glass tumbler.

He exchanges glass for phone, and blearily looks at the screen.

_She named him Blaine_.

Says the text message from Pepper, and there’s a photo of his son attached. Newborn and still a little wrinkled, a little red, but he’s sleeping peacefully and it hits him, suddenly, that he’s a _father_.

For once he regrets the tabloids, the publicity, and feels anger towards the reporters camped down on his front lawn. It’s safer, for him and Blaine, if Tony isn’t seen anywhere near the hospital. They can’t risk. He won’t risk it.

He’s part hopeful, and part fearful, but mostly he’s full of strange a warmth that has nothing to do with the alcohol coursing through his system. Was this what his father had felt when Tony had been born?

_The official birth certificate says “Blaine Howard Anderson”, but, and here’s another secret, there’s another certificate. Tony keeps it locked up tight in the back of his desk, sealed in a secret compartment, a roll of paper that says “Blaine Howard Stark”._

~*~*~

For Blaine’s fifth Christmas, Tony talks to him through a video chat on the computer, upgraded with Stark technology to be more awesome than amazing, and Blaine laughs and tells him he missed him, and asks if he’s coming to visit.

Tony has to tell him “No, Blaine,” and he hates to tell his son no. But the visit over Thanksgiving was pushing it, and Pepper was amazing, being able to get him some time off and sneak him away from under Obadiah’s eye.

Blaine nods his head seriously, which just looks adorable on his little face, and says, “Okay.” There’s a short pause, before Blaine launches into another story and then starts tell Tony about this song he heard on the radio.

Sometimes Blaine is so sweet and _smiley_ that Tony wonders whom he gets it from. Pepper, who’s on a flight down to Westerville to deliver Blaine’s presents and catch up (because, turns out, she’s really fond of the kid) insists that it’s all Tony.

Sweet and smiley, Tony is doubtful of. But that charm, and the sparkle in the kid’s eyes as he waves his arms around excitedly and keeps talking a mile a minute.

That’s all Stark.

“Love you, kiddo,” He tells him.

Blaine beams at him exuberantly, no doubt in his mind of his father’s love, “Love you too, Daddy.”

~*~*~

_“Dad? Dad? I-I have something I need to talk to you about.”_

“Who said being a parent would be easy, Tony?” Pepper tells him, quietly.

Tony laughs, it’s not a happy one, “I think it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” He admits quietly, he couldn’t say whether he’s talking to the alcohol in his hands or to Pepper.

There’s a moment of silence, and then, “Do you regret it?” she asks, because Tony didn’t have to claim Blaine, Blaine didn’t ever have to know he was a Stark, Tony could have run away. Has run away.

But he didn’t run away from this.

“No,” Tony sighs, “No. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

_And the worst, Tony secretly fears, because who is he, to be someone’s parent?_

_“It’s okay, Blaine,” Tony tells him over the phone, but there’s fear choking his voice, and he’s not sure if it’s better or worse that Blaine can’t see his face._

_“…really?”_

_“Really.”_

_The “I love you” goes unsaid, and in retrospect, Tony isn’t sure if Blaine heard it. He doesn’t ever want Blaine to think that Tony doesn’t love him. Because he does, he’s loved him since he saw a picture, loved across the miles, and through the video chats. Since he walked into a secret house in a secret location and a little boy ran up and jumped into his arms with a loud, “_ Dad! _” without needing an introduction._

~*~*~

It’s freshmen year for Blaine, Tony thinks, that’s the first year of high school. The year where it’s supposed to be a fresh start, and everything starts again. That’s a lie, Tony knows, High School is just like Middle School, and sometimes nothing gets better.

It only takes a few months for things to fall apart. He should know, he’s a master at chaos, but he didn’t see this coming (and he should have, even though Pepper tells him that he can’t predict everything. He’s Tony Stark. He should have _known_.)

But he didn’t, and now he’s sitting here at his son’s bedside, holding his hand and listening to the monitors in the hospital room beep softly.

He can’t sue the school, because as far as everyone in the world knows Blaine’s not a Stark. Tony Stark, Billionare Playboy Philanthropist, sometimes Iron Man, has no connection with Blaine Anderson, native of Westerville, Ohio.

He wants to grab Blaine and run. Swaddle him in those ridiculous cardigans his son favors and then lock him in his room and never let him out.

“He’ll be okay,” Linda tells him, from the doorway as she walks into the sterile room, two steaming cups of coffee in her hands.

She hands him one. It seems like that only thing they drink these past few days, coffee and caffeine keeping him on the brink of awake and sleeping. He’s too tired to stay awake. He’s too tired to sleep.

He doesn’t say anything in reply to her, there’s not _guarantee_ that Blaine will be okay. Statistics are running through his head, brain damage? Muscle damage? Will he still remember everything? And on and on….

Linda lays a hand on his shoulder, “He’ll pull through, Tony,” she tells him, and he looks at this woman. Just one night, together, he thought, he hadn’t meant for more. Had never meant to see her again. This is his son’s mother, he thinks, with her calm eyes, and steady hand on his shoulder. He’s glad it ‘s her and not any of the other women he’s slept with.

“I-“

“Remember that time,” she tells him, as she settles into a chair, “that time when he was 10, it was just the third summer he had spent with you.” She laughed, fondly, “I remember you called me in a panic because he had been jumping on the furniture, singing, and had fallen and bumped his head.”

She nudges his shoulder, “I think you were more frightened then he was.”

Blaine does wake up the next day. Tony has never felt relief so strongly.

~*~*~

The next phone call Tony gets is from Linda, _“Tony, I need to tell you something.”_

He pays more attention to mutant rights afterwards.

At the same time, he limits his interactions with Xavier and his mutants. He wants them as far away from Westerville, Ohio as they possibly can.

~*~*~

Looking back, building a car probably wasn’t the best idea he’s had.

“I’m gay, Dad,” Blaine tells him, afterwards, looking at the floor of his room in Stark Towers, “I’m not straight.”

“I know.”

“I don’t like girls, I like boys. I’m never going to like girls Not…not like _that_.”

“I know,” Tony says, helplessly. What can he say? That he thought that maybe, maybe, if Blaine could act just a smidgeon more straight that he could fly under the radar? This is a shield, Tony wants to tell him, this is a shield that I want to protect you with. That I can protect you with from miles away. Because Iron Man can beat up Dr. Doom, can beat up aliens and villains, but he can’t protect you from this.

“I’m sorry, Blaine,” Tony tells him heavily, he doesn’t, can’t figure out what else to say, and pulls his son in for a hug, feeling the fluttering of wings beneath his arm still small enough to be hidden beneath a sweater.

This isn’t something Iron Man can help with either.

The next day, he takes Blaine down to the gym and pulls out a pair of boxing gloves.

~*~*~

It’s Blaine’s sophomore year, and he’s spending it at some preppy all boys school. Tony can deal with the stuffy looking blazers, and there’s even some sort of pleasure in the way his son shyly asks him about hair gel, because in Ohio? This school is a breath of fresh air for him

Non-discrimination policy.

That’s all Tony had to hear.

~*~*~

Then there’s Loki, and Nick Fury hounding his footsteps and Steve Rogers giving him his “I judge you” face. Then Stark Tower becomes the Avengers headquarters.

He’s really glad, in an odd sort of way that for once Blaine wants to stay in Ohio for the summer. His son extorts a promise out of him to visit for Thanksgiving and Christmas (he’s experiencing pride at this moment) and Tony is a little alarmed to find that the reason his son wants to stay in _Ohio_ is because he has a boyfriend.

Not that he isn’t happy, he’s glad Blaine has found someone, but at the same time, Pepper has to keep him from telling Jarvis to run a background check.

Then it’s Loki pulling buildings up and Dr. Doom with his Doombots marching a parade down the street and he has to go save Manhattan instead of running facial recognition on his son’s boyfriend in order to learn his name.

~*~*~

Tony doesn’t know what to make of Kurt Hummel. He’s a boy, who dresses fabulously, who his son loves so much he has hearts in his eyes.

For that, Tony thanks him, for making his son so happy and brighter than he’s been since that terrible school dance.

But Kurt also has dreams, dreams of New York. Of big lights, and bigger stages, and large crowds and clapping.

For that Tony could resent him, does resent him on some level, because Blaine will want to follow.

And Tony has been trying to keep Blaine out of New York for 17 years.

But he can hear the beating of wings against a golden cage, and he thinks, resignedly, that maybe it’s time to let his son fly.

~*~*~

When Blaine’s wings finish growing, they’re a beautiful sleek slate-gray-blue, which black bars, a white underside, and black spotted all over. They’re hawk wings, sleek and fast, a Sparrow hawk.

Tony looks up the ceiling of the gym in Stark towers, watching his son fly in lazy loops laughing at Kurt who keeps yelling at him to be more careful and “For goodness sake, Blaine. Don’t fly so close to the wall!!”

_There’s a dream he has. He’s never told anyone, and he’ll keep it close to his heart until it comes true. He dreams of blue skies and freedom, and an endless horizon where he’s flying in his suit and there’s laughter above, the swoosh of outstretched wings and his son’s smiling face hovering just out of sight but within arm’s reach._

_It’s a little idealistic, and ridiculous, there’s always going to be something in the sky. Whether it’s aliens or doombots. But it’d be nice, Tony thinks, to be able to fly together._

~*~*~

This is how Tony Stark keeps a secret. He’s open and free, full of vices and the tabloids love him.  There’s nothing secret to be found.

Save for hope, fluttering at the bottom, safe and sound, hidden in Pandora’s box.


End file.
